Primary One
by syrrah
Summary: You're in some of my classes but we've successfully ignored one another for years. You're rich, privileged and self-sufficient. I'm only one of those things. Why would you suddenly want to talk to me? Oh, don't tell me you're LONELY...
1. Red

**This is a repost of an older story that I didn't finish. I will valiantly attempt to finish it this time round. Crumbs, it's only seven chapters. You'd think the effort wouldn't be beyond me. A special nod to the girl with the faulty phone line. **

**PRIMARY ONE**

**RED**

You know how you can get belligerent the week before your period? Then as soon as the flow starts, it's like that mess of an attitude flows out of you at the same time, restoring you to your usual polite and co-operative self.

That's if you have a polite and co-operative self. That's if belligerence is not your normal state.

I don't fucking know, so don't quote me on it, but something I do know is that I'm so regular I can mark the days beforehand on the calendar, and I know when I have to put tampons and painkillers in my school bag. On one day every fourth week, my first day, I wear scarlet panties. It's a war-cry, but nobody knows. My red serenade is mine alone.

And I was in a mood, awaiting the release and the relief, suspended in a ruby haze, at a garden party at the Cullen's house.

No-one is really friends with them, but they are the wealthiest family in town and yearly they throw a party. It's all noblesse oblige, the ostentatious bestowal of their largesse. No one believes in their philanthropic crumb-scattering to the peasantry, but we all go. We all go, to see how the other half live. Not exactly half, is it? There are seven of them and more than three thousand of us.

They have a gazebo, and usually they hire smooth-cat jazz musos for the early evening, and punked up spiky-haired jump-arounds for later, when the conservative grown-ups retire to talk politics and cultivate gout and become obnoxious in their coveting and the young people can grope and kiss in the dark.

My Dad hates it but he has to go as he occupies such a prominent place in Forks society and his absence would be noted. He's the chief of police and he's never there on duty, but he never drinks because God, he can't afford to look like he's on a lower social tier than he is around these people. And anyway, there's so much alcohol running out of the taps that there's always near-trouble. The Cullens hire security, of course, because they think of everything. Boys who start fights and girls who vomit are disappeared with speed and discretion.

I've been dragged to these events since I was born and they were fun when I was little, with the pony rides, and the fireworks. Now I detest them. Fucking show-off fucking bastards without a clue. Dr Hotshot Carlisle Cullen should get hold of some stemcells and grow himself a brain and see what the locals really think of him and his insensitivity.

The jazz band are good, of course, because nothing but the best. Does Dr Stupid have any idea how wrong he gets it?

I was watching them when one of the sons turned up next to me. Oh, great. Even his name shows how out of touch his parents are - Edward. Who's called _Edward_ in this day and age? Seventeen years ago, his Jane Eyre-influenced mother gave him a name that would mark him as being an anachronism.

"Hello Bella," he said. "Are you enjoying the music?"

I bit back a negative response, because actually I did like the music. "Well, it's okay, I guess," I answered.

"What sort of music do you like?" he asked.

Was he trying to make conversation? Capital L for _LOSER_!

"Anything really. Nose-flute," I told him, making something up so he'd lose his nerve and go away. But he didn't.

"Polynesian?" he asked.

He had never spoken to me before. I had never even heard his voice because he doesn't speak in class. The teachers seemed to hold him in some kind of awed regard, probably because his father is a surgeon and if ever they need an operation it'll be Pa Cullen cutting them open, but why would Boy Wonder speak to me?

"Bamboo," I said, and the subtext was 'buzz off'.

I was obviously too subtle. He didn't go anywhere.

"My parents like this scaled-down big band stuff. I prefer classical. What do you think?" he said.

I thought with every privilege in the world he wouldn't be asking anyone else for their opinion.

Years ago I worked out a theory about how very clever, powerful men marry very beautiful women and if their progeny are neither clever or beautiful they fall by the wayside like ordinary mortals, thus paving the way for the genetically blessed offspring who are both beautiful and clever and will take over the world, being unopposed and unopposable.

Edward Gorgeous-in-a-predictable-way is one of those, and who cares? He can have the world and he can leave me alone.

"I don't like classical music," I said dismissively, but still he persisted in playing the gracious host.

"Can I get you a drink?" he asked.

I'd never really looked at him properly before, because he's just not in my sphere. I did then. I looked. I stared. I study fine art and we do plenty of drawing, and I am used to finding relationships between the parts and the sum of things. I am used to noticing details and textures and tints and shades and spaces in between. I look for assymmetry and mismatchings and glints and lines, and planes and surfaces. Scrutinizing him with such close analysis, I suddenly saw that he had nothing of his parents in him.

"Are you adopted?" I asked abruptly, and maybe the question was rude. It just came unbidden to my tongue.

He frowned.

"Yes," he answered simply, but there was a lot in his single-word admission, a whole lot.

"I didn't know that," I said, secure in my father's nose, and my mother's chin. Whose are Edward's features?

"Nobody knows. Nobody speaks to me," he said, shrugging.

My dad reckons I pick up lame dogs. Who would think the crown prince of Forks would be a lame dog?

"Why are you talking to me?" I asked him.

He shrugged again.

"Don't worry about it," he sighed, turning away.

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	2. Orange

**Ha! This is probably sooner than you expected, isn't it? Don't get too excited. Daily updates are the province of the organized (like, not me). A special nod to anyone persecuted by cats (like me). Oh, and I think I may be jumbling my tenses. Probably certainly.**

**PRIMARY ONE**

**ORANGE**

A bunch of us are going bowling on Friday night; we're carpooling and meeting at the Skittle Shop which we do every now and again for revelry and mayhem. It's licensed, so one or seventeen beers make a disappearance, the boys take the bowling semi-seriously and the girls take the dressing-up-to-show-off-your-ass very seriously. Heaps o' fun. I decide to ruin it for everybody by inviting Edward No-Friends Cullen because now I am sorry for him.

"Is this going to be a date?" Jessica asked with some incredulity.

"No, but he gets left out of everything and it's not very nice, is it?" I said.

"Well, if the Cullens want to bowl they could just build themselves some lanes in between the swimming pool and the tennis court," Mike remarked and last week I might have laughed along with everyone else but not now. I know two things about Edward Cullen that the public at large don't know. One of them is what he told me; the other is what he didn't tell me. The second, unspoken thing is that he's lonely.

At school I let him know about the bowling party and ask if he'd like to come. He's pathetic. He frowns at the same time as looking as hopeful as a puppy at the shelter.

"Shall I pick you up?" he asked.

"I'm already sorted for transport, thanks," I told him. God, I'm not taking my kindness towards the socially-disabled program that far! Like I want to sit in a fucking car with him!

We all get there at pretty much the same time on Friday night and line up to get the bowling shoes. You can get red and white, or orange and black. I always ask for orange and black because I love them. I'd buy myself a pair to wear instead of sneakers if I could afford them, but they're really expensive. I've seen them in sports shops and they're a couple of hundred bucks, but here tonight they're ten dollars a game.

The music at the rink is so loud it's blinding - the sort of relentless pounding noise that necessitates you holler at the person right next to you, and governs your timing while you sashay down the lanes going for a strike but only managing to knock over one little fucking pin all on its own at the end. I am famous for my ineptitude and the boys crowd behind me to watch how crap I am. Of course, I know they're not only watching my bowling. They're like that with all the girls. It's a biological imperative isn't it? Moron males.

To my surprise, Edward Social Outcast Cullen pulls me aside after my first turn. I hadn't even seen him arrive.

"Bella, do you know what's going on here?" he demands.

"A game of mathematic precision, requiring nerves of steel and ending in the triumph of the individual?" I say.

"Bella, the guys are all just here _perving_," he states. "At your - well, at you."

It's that kind of place, and I don't care, but he's attracting a bit of perving himself from all the females around, including the family groups with girls surely as young as seven or eight, and even a couple of female janitors sweeping the floor who may be in their fifties. I can see guys perving on him too. He's oblivious.

"And you - last weekend at your party? What were _you_ doing?" I demand.

"Nothing! What? Jesus! I was _talking_ to you!" he splutters.

"Well, relax, and try not to worry about what other people are up to," I advise, without a clue as to why he's got a problem.

There was space left on one of the boards and I punch in his name, adding him into the game. He selects a ball and with his thumb and the second two fingers of his right hand in the holes he approaches the lane. Oh please God holy shit he's a fuckwit. The poor boy. He has the grace of a gymnast, his limbs are balletic, he sends the ball shooting with surety and the most perfect curve ever seen in Forks and knocks over all ten pins. He could have knocked over twenty.

The crowd from our school all fall silent, despite the fact that they cheer for each other. I suddenly hate everyone - him for being such a fish out of water and them for being so small town and petty.

"Hey, you got the lucky shoes, Cullen," I call, because besides me, he's the only person who picked the orange and black. "Tiger feet," I add.

Edward has somehow had a moment's clarity then, because even though it seems as though he could cream the entire game, the rest of his bowls don't go quite as well as his first. Thank fuck, he's picked up that it's not about winning, or about doing your best. It's about being part of the group and having a laugh and there's a camaraderie here where all the boys try to out-clown, not out-do. It's okay to win as long as it's not by any sort of margin. I like my friends, but I'm suddenly upset at Edward's having to hold himself back like this because no-one can stand the competition.

I take my turns too and I know I'll come last because I am some miraculous combination of pigeon-toed and duck-footed that the Great Almighty alone must answer for. I manage to trip over my own knee soon enough and Edward is the one who rushes to help.

"Are you all right?" he asks, his hands carefully on me.

"Ow! Of course I'm not!" I yell. None of the other boys would dare to try and pick me up unless they saw actual blood, and even then they'd call an ambulance first. Everyone's a little wary of me. Everyone except Edward.

I stagger back to the seats with his assistance and my knee is really hurting.

"Fucking shoes," I claim. "The soles are uneven."

"Well, they're all rented, you don't know who else has been wearing them, you should have your own shoes..." he murmurs while I'm rocking and clutching my leg like a great big baby.

"My own shoes. Yeah right, shut up, Cullen," I mutter, realizing that Edward Richboy I Could Buy This Whole Town has of course brought his own fucking bowling shoes.

He takes my turns from then on because I'm sulking with my knee and he bowls poorly enough to make me second to last, and himself third to last. He's got some class in there somewhere.

I'm getting a lift home with Jessica, and I say goodnight to Edward at the entrance.

"Are you sure your leg is okay? Do you need to go to the hospital? If there's swelling you need to get it checked out," he says like some over-concerned mother hen.

"I'm fine," I tell him. "Thanks for bowling for me."

"Any time," he nods. "Thanks for asking me along."

It's all a bit awkward because everyone's watching and everyone thinks I'm on a date which I am not.

A few days later a notice turns up in the mail that I have to go to the Post Office to sign for a delivery. My hippy mom sends me bizarre things like basil wands, "Try this! I used one to purify our hotel room!" or a baseball, "Phil scored a home run!" (Phil being her spectacularly boring sports-playing manfriend) so I go along expecting something underwhelming from dear mama.

I open the parcel, and fuck me dead, it's bowling shoes. Orange and black. What the - ?

The card says "Tiger feet".

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	3. Yellow

**Thick and fast. The chapters, I mean. I'm not talking about myself.**

**PRIMARY ONE**

**YELLOW**

I'm conflicted now and I spend quite a bit of time thinking about it. On the one hand, I don't like Edward taking the Lord Cullen approach of throwing money around to show how fucking magnanimous the wealthy can be, giving-alms-to-the-poor-before-they-expire-and-make-a-mess-on-the-pavement sort of approach. On the other hand, I did something for him that was within my means - I invited him out with a bunch of normal people for a normal night of fun. He did something for me that was within his means - he bought me a pair of shoes from fucking Europe and had them flown over, as the label on the box and the postage would appear to indicate. He thought he was getting me something I'd like, and it was a neat spin on making the punishment fit the crime. So after my bout of overthinking I decide that the shoes are perfect and I wear them every day. I'm complained at by all my friends but I don't care because I have great shoes.

I thanked him in an appropriate manner.

"Thank you for the shoes. You shouldn't have," I said off-handedly, while inwardly high-fiving him. I could _almost_ have given him a hug.

"You're welcome," he answered, and then it wasn't back to total ignoring, which was what used to happen, but nods of acknowledgement as we passed each other on the way to classes. We have a couple of classes together as it happens and he's as quiet as ever. Occasionally teachers refer to him and it's to say we should all take a leaf out of Edward Cullen's book because apparently he is such a high achiever. Good for him.

A week or so later he slips a note to me in biology, formally asking me to go out for dinner with him. What a fucking psycho - teenagers don't ask other teenagers out for dinner! They say do you want to come over and play, my mother will pick you up and drop you home later! Of course he only has this sort of poise because his parents own Switzerland.

I feel like I owe him because of the shoes.

"Okay," I write back, which isn't 'yes', it's just 'well, I'll go along with it.'

He came to pick me up on Friday just after Dad had given me a can of pepper spray.

"Condiment," I said, waving it under Edward's nose before shoving it into my pocket. Poor guy.

We drove towards Port Angeles - yes I know I said I wouldn't get in his fucking car which is a volvo smelling of affluence, but it's just this once, for the shoes. I was wearing them.

"Do you like Vietnamese?" he asked nervously, after fifteen minutes of not saying anything.

I didn't know any Vietnamese. "They seem nice, generally," I answered carefully.

"I mean the food," he said. Oh crap.

"Um, spring rolls?" I said. My experience of international cuisine was pretty much pizza.

He took me to this place and ordered for me and they brought a plate with lettuce, herbs, skinny, glassy noodles and chopped peanuts, and another plate with circular white stuff he said was ricepaper. They also brought a metal bowl on a stand, with raw chicken in the bowl and a little saucer underneath with meths or something in it, which they lit at the table. I stared in fascination at the blue flames.

This wasn't the sort of place I had imagined Edward the Magnificent would frequent. It wasn't particularly opulent, and the people in here were ordinary. People like me. The decor was mostly red, with pictures of Vietnamese notables all over the walls, the carpet was dark red with big black spots and table cloths were all cream with paper napkins folded into cranes. It wasn't at all richy - not down-market, just not richy.

"Do you like it here?" I asked him.

"Yes. The food's great, and I enjoy the ambience," he answered, pronouncing it "Om-bee-onss".

"Am. Be. _Inss._ You're not in Paris now, Cullen," I corrected him. Fucker.

And then I demonstrated my own considerable fuckery, which I generally endeavor to keep hidden. The chicken cooking apparatus had a lid on and I didn't want to burn my fingers, so I got hold of the napkin nearest to me and used it to take the lid off the pot. Paper napkins can be wilful things, and the parts that stick out from your fingers aren't as obedient as the parts you have a firm hold on. This particular one had corners with a moth's fascination for flames and I don't even know how or why, but it attempted suicide.

I watched for a stunned, slow half second then dropped it with a squeal and it fell on the floor. Bright yellow it was, just like a canary. I was incinerating a canary. I put my foot out to stamp on it, and remembered I was wearing my new shoes. Bad. All this took a fraction - I stared back up at Edward whose hand had already reached vainly to take the thing from me and he saw in an instant that I didn't want to burn my tiger shoes. God knows what his stupid shoes had cost, but he stamped out the canary with no hesitation.

People around us were watching with mild interest, as though it was nothing new. Once we'd picked up the dead bird's remains there was a new black circle on the floor, and I realised what all the other black circles were.

Edward was trying to be soothing. "It's okay, we've damaged the carpet but I'll arrange to have it replaced - are you all right? I'll go and talk to the management," and he started to get up.

"God, Edward will you just chill?" I hissed. "Have a look around for Chrissakes! There's burn holes all over the floor! They serve dishes with naked flames, look what happens! They don't want new carpet! If you offer to recarpet the place it you'll make them feel bad. Just eat dinner! No-one seems to care!"

He stared at me. He had eyelashes like a girl.

"Is the chicken ready?" I asked, a bit quieter. I'd dropped the lid along with the paper napkin and it had been cleared away as well. We could see into the little pot. The food looked ready.

"You just nearly set fire to the building and your only concern is your dinner?" Edward asked.

"Yes Cullen, danger makes me hungry. Let's eat."

I was so hopeless at putting the rolls together he had to make them for me, and he relaxed enough to smirk a little at my clumsiness so then I had to find a reason to smirk back at him and I snorted at how surprised he was that it had only taken me a matter of seconds to have an accident which could have been catastrophic.

"Lucky you put your foot down," I said, and we both ended up laughing.

When he took me home he stopped the car outside my house and turned the interior light on while I fished in my pocket for my key.

"Thank you Edward. I've had a great evening. Seeya," I said, reaching for the door.

"Bella," he said. "You're not like this at school. You're more reticent there. I didn't know you were so... aw - "

"Awful? Yeah, thanks," I said, door open.

"No," he said, and with the light on I could see him quite well. He looked like he'd thought twice about what he'd been going to say. A blush began at the edges of his cheeks and spread across them. Aw - what? Awesome? Save me, the Cullen boy had a crush.

"Gotta go, Edward. You know my dad's got a gun," I said. "He'll come out shooting if a boy has me parked up in a car outside for any longer than two and a half minutes. And there's no reason to sit here for half an hour, anyway. This wasn't a date."

I hesitated for a split second before I got out and I chanced a look at him again. Face frozen, he was staring at nothing through the windscreen, and I suddenly realized it _was_ a date to him. He'd asked me out, I'd said yes, he'd taken me out, and I was a bitch because I already knew he was very vulnerable and I knew he'd never taken anybody from school out before, and I knew he'd entrusted me with a secret he'd never told anyone.

Bella Bitchface Swan, that's me. He'd given me the power to hurt him, and I'd used it. Stomped on him like a fucking paper bird on fire.

What was fucking _wrong_ with me?

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	4. Green

**What do you say when you see three holes in the ground full of water?**

**Well, well, well**

**Don't take any notice of me.**

**PRIMARY ONE**

**GREEN**

I avoided him for days and pretty much avoided everyone else too. I felt like crap. There I was labeling his father insensitive, while graduating Top of the fucking Class for insensitivity myself. There I was stopping by the wayside to extend a hand to a lame dog, and then once it gave me its paw I kicked it. I didn't how how to make things better between me and Edward and I didn't know if I wanted to make things better for his sake, or for my own. I didn't want to give him any false impressions, I didn't want him to think I pitied him, or that I returned his feelings, whatever they were. What a fucking mess.

I needed to find some way to apologize though. In English Lit I slipped him a note that said "Sorry," and he just shot me an unreadable look with no other response.

I slipped him another note five minutes before the bell rang. It said "Aren't you talking to me now?"

He shook his head. At least that was a better result.

I had time for one more note, and I said, "Will you meet me after school?" I didn't even have a plan, I thought I'd just bumble some badly worded, awkward apology to get it off my chest and then I'd stop feeling like so bad. It was all about me, of course.

Edward shrugged and I spent the rest of the day not knowing if he'd agreed or not, but then later there he was in the school's parking lot standing next to the silver chariot and looking intense and stiff-shouldered like he always did.

"Can I get a lift with you?" I asked, and he nodded. Most days I got a lift with another guy from my home room Tyler Crowley, who drove a van with a mattress in the back. "Just In Case" we called him. I hadn't heard of it ever having come in handy.

"Justin, I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and got into the Edmobile.

"You're still playing the Man Of Few Words game?" I demanded after a couple of miles when Edward hadn't said anything at all.

He shrugged. "Where would you like to go? Or am I taking you straight home?"

"Ah - the park?" I suggested, still with no plan.

"It looks like rain," he remarked, but he took the turn and we got to the park, heading for the children's playground.

It did look like rain, he was quite right, but I offered to push him on the swing and although he snorted at me, he sat on it and let me. I put my hands on his back and shoved and he was pretty heavy and I couldn't move him much.

"Put some muscle into it, Swan," he said and I tried again, grunting with the effort.

"Take your feet off the fucking ground," I growled, "and stop resisting me."

"I'm not resisting you," he said and just as I was feeling relieved that he had his back to me so I wouldn't have to face him as he said that, the rain started. The clouds didn't just leak a few preliminary drops from the sky to let us know it was coming, they flung a deluge and Edward leapt off the swing, shouting "the slide!" and grabbing my hand.

The playground has a slide that's about three feet wide so that two or three kids can go down at once depending on how big they are or aren't, and there's a little hidey-place underneath it with a seat and round portholes in the walls.

We squished in and I'm a skinny girl but I had never felt so wide. I was in close body contact with Edward from my shoulders to my hips to my knees to my feet. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was excruciating.

"Okay, look, can I just say something?" I began, deciding it's now or never. He picked a lock of my hair from his shoulder where it had fallen and twirled it around his fingers. God. His fingers were long and elegant and I'd never noticed them before. My hair looked a different color against them than it did any other time.

"Yes. Please do," he said. "I'm all ears."

"Right. Good. Um. The thing is..." I trailed off, because I wasn't quite sure what the thing was. Luckily there was a sheet of rain only a wall away that I could look at while I tried to work myself out.

"The thing is," Edward said, having decided to help me, "You invited me to go somewhere with you and then I invited you to go somewhere with me and I thought both of those occasions were dates but I got it all wrong and I guess I owe you an apology."

"Huh?" I said, stunned at his view of events. _He_ was saying sorry to _me_?

"I thought _I_ was the villain of the piece," I mumbled.

"No, I think it was me," he answered.

"Look, it's nothing personal, I just - it's just that - I know I never really talked to you or anything, but now I have and you seem like a pretty good person - but I don't really want to date anyone. I need to concentrate on school, you know? Apparently you're an A-grade genius so maybe you can afford the time to date and still pass exams, but I have to work really hard for my grades and I don't want to be stuck in Forks as a fucking waitress or check-out chick or something. That's what happened to my Mom because she had a boyfriend far too early and I'm not going to have my mother's life, I'm just not," I said to the rain.

"What was so bad about your mother's life?" he asked softly.

"She met my dad!" I said. I turned back to him. He was watching me, and godamnit, he still had my hair in his fucking hand.

"She was so young - she met my dad and it was this whole fucking stupid love thing and I came along and wrecked her whole life and she wanted so much more but they had me to contend with and my dad had to get a steady job and..." I stopped because my own wordspill was so unexpected. I didn't ordinarily bleat.

"And?" Edward said. The light was dim in there, what with the rain and the shadows and his eyes were dark and his red hair just looked plain brown. I looked away.

"She couldn't stand it here. She didn't want to bring a baby up in the rain. This - " I gestured towards the outside surrounding us. "Fucking, fucking rain. She thought things might be better in the sunshine. My dad was so bewildered because he tried his best and he liked it here and she couldn't stay. Why am I telling you this?"

"Because you need to," he answered, and he was so wrong. _I_ was supposed to help _him_. He'd sounded lost and alone at his parents' party, and I was going to be the helper; he was the helpee. I didn't need to offload childhood trauma - he did. How did this fucking role-reversal happen?

"I don't need anything, Cullen. I'm just fine," I growled. "I won't inherit my parents' difficulties, thank you very much. I'm aware of what went wrong, and I know exactly what to avoid. I'm going to do fucking great in school, go to college and have a career. No boyfriends, no babies."

"Sounds like you've got it all sussed," he said. "Where's your mother now?"

"She's in Arizona. She got her sunshine after all."

"You know, Bella, maybe it wasn't you. Maybe your parents just liked different climates. What about that?"

I was silent. Forks, Washington. Green as fuck. Phoenix, Arizona. Subtle desert colors, nothing vibrant. Rain versus sun. Damp versus dry. Cold versus hot. Cullen, you fucking, fucking bastard.

"You think my parents broke up over the fucking _weather_?" I yelled at him.

"Easy, tiger," he said. "I don't think anything."

I was so pissed off I stared at him again without caring that it might be weird, and I tried to see why everybody thought he was so good-looking. We've all got the same features yet there's an infinite multitude of possibilities as to size and shape and arrangement. He had stupid hair that he must never have washed in his whole life, he had thick dark eyebrows that looked like giant millipedes, his eyes were of indeterminate color in the lack of light but were framed by those stupid effeminate lashes, his cheekbones were high and his face angular, his skin pale, the beginnings of stubble sparse across his upper lip and his chin and jaw. His lips, if measured on a spectrum from thin to full would be over the halfway line towards full. To be analytical and dispassionate about it I could admit that he was very handsome. To be analytical and dispassionate about it I could admit that his looks weren't important to me. But fuck, I was beginning to suspect that his fucking perceptive, insightful, controversial, annoying brain could be very important.

The rain had stopped and we emerged from our little shelter and made our way back to his car, both silent once again. I was immersed deep in thought about whether love could withstand climate and god knows what he was thinking. It was a lot lighter out from under the slide, and Edward the gentleman opened the passenger side door for me as I looked searchingly at him. His fucking eyes were fucking green, like a forest, like Forks itself.

Anathema to my mother. What about me?

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	5. Blue

**If you've reviewed me and I haven't responded I'm very sorry. I thought I was diligently replying to every single review but I've realised that all my replies were coming back to my inbox. I am a digital know-little. If you have received a response from me it's a marvel, or perhaps I'm not as sdrawkcab as I think I am. **

**PRIMARY ONE**

**BLUE**

The next day when my dad dropped me at school it was obvious as soon as I set foot on the grounds that Justin had told everyone I'd gotten in Edward's car. My whole year, and half of every other year gawped and nudged the nearest person in the ribs with their elbows. Then they all swivelled their heads so they could gawp at Edward, who was just driving in.

"So what were the two of you doing? I guess we can't call him Eddie No Friends anymore, can we? He's Eddie One Friend now," Mike sniggered. "Eddie Bella's Friend. Or would that be Eddie Bella's CarFuck Friend?"

"Screw yourself," I replied.

"Bella, next time you can borrow my van, if you want," Justin offered. "That way when he parks you up somewhere on the way home you can hump him on the mattress instead of in his back seat."

I scowled hard. "You're _way_ off the mark. But just for the record, I'd rather hump him in the back seat of his car than on your filthy mattress any day, asshat."

"Fine by me," a voice said, and there was dear Eddie One Friend himself, standing right behind me and getting in on the conversation. I turned to send my scowl in his direction and found him smirking.

"Drop fucking dead, all of you," I said, blushing to the roots of my hair, and storming off.

My blush didn't let up all the way through first period, and by second period I was still wearing it. Second period happened to be biology. Great. Edward Cullen's smirk hadn't let up either.

"Get out of town," I hissed, and he smirked some more.

"Edward, would you like to share with the class just what is amusing you so much?" Mr Banner asked.

"No sir," Edward responded, failing to assemble his face into seriousness.

And then just to make my day perfect, Banner gave us an exercise which involved working in pairs and having to actually talk. I preferred it when he demanded everybody observe the code of silence. Edward lost no time in standing close to me and murmuring, "So - the backseat humping in my car? When would you like it to happen?"

"That's not exactly what I said - " I started.

"I _know_ exactly what you said. I was there. And it's already gone viral - the entire school knows and it's probably the talk of the staffroom as well. By this afternoon everyone from here to eternity will know what you said."

"I was insulting Justin's revolting mattress, not making any declarations about you!"

It occured to me then that the look on Edward's face wasn't exactly self-satisfied, like a smirk would normally be. It was more sincere than that. He was genuinely, truthfully, honestly smiling, for fuck's sake. He looked the happiest I had seen him look since he hit puberty, at around thirteen, and God knows he'd looked completely miserable since then. We were handing a microscope back and forth between us and attempting to present a composed front while this exchange and my observations were taking place. I felt anything _but_ composed.

"I'm available this afternoon, if it suits," Edward offered, and now he looked goddamn eager.

"Didn't you hear anything I said to you yesterday?" I demanded.

"Yes, I did. You don't want to date and have your grades suffer. I can be your study partner, if that would help. You don't want to get pregnant. I promise you once we get to that stage, we'll take precau-"

"What don't you understand about all this?" I yelled at him. Banner gave us both detention.

I was beyond furious. Detention meant that Justin would leave without me - and guess what? I'd have to get a lift home with eager Edward!

"Don't blame me for your temper," he said evenly when I climbed into the Edwagon after our release from Banner's unreasonable incarceration. I slammed the passenger side door shut. It seemed appropriate to maintain a frosty sulk all the way home.

But a short way from my house, Edward killed the motor and faced me. "Look, I get that what you said earlier may not have come out exactly the way you meant it. I get that I'm hoping it was a freudian slip, and you insist that it wasn't. What I want to know is why you're so angry all the time."

"I'm not angry," I started.

"Yes you are. What have you got to be so riled about? Your parents split up, I know that. You think it was because of you but that's highly unlikely - they probably just weren't compatible. You're wary of letting anyone close because you saw your parents' relationship come apart and you're scared the same thing could happen to you. You're also scared you'll have a baby too young."

"Well, shit Professor, you're brilliant. A five minute analysis of me and you didn't even use inkblots."

He could have been annoyed with me for being so rude to him, but he wasn't. He was a patient guy, and forgiving. I didn't deserve it.

"Bella, it's a fact of life that relationships break down. It's unfortunate, particularly when people get hurt. You can recover from it and move on and make different choices. And these days no-one needs to have an unplanned pregnancy. _No-one_. And even if a baby comes along early, there are options for young parents, and they can both still go to college and still do something meaningful with their lives along with parenting. A baby isn't the end of anything - it's the beginning," he said.

I wasn't appeased.

"That's easy for you to say, Mr Silver Spoon!" I hurled at him. "Your father's money can see you over any hurdle, past any hiccup. You'll be in med school without having to wait tables or flip burgers, or valet-park people's cars - if you have a precious _early_ baby you can employ a nanny 24-7 - your way will be paved in fucking gold - "

"Stop right there," he said abruptly.

"Why? It's the truth."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

He turned away from me, but not before I'd seen his eyes narrow. He was clenching his fists on his thighs, and a muscle worked in his jaw.

"Hey - " I began, reaching a hand to him. I'd never seen him look like this before.

"I'd better go. I'll see you tomorrow," he said curtly, starting the car as my hand fell back to my side.

"Edward, what's the matter? Now you're the one who's angry. What did I say?" I pressed.

"Don't worry about it. I need to get going now, Bella. Sorry I got you on detention. Sorry you're late home."

He was pulling up smoothly outside my house while I was trying to catch my breath. That was a mood swing faster than any I ever had even when I was pre-menstrual.

"You were right just before when you said I had no idea. Please tell me what's wrong," I persisted. "You ask me things to get me to talk. Now, I'm asking you. _You_ talk."

Edward swallowed, and I could see him considering my words. He was clearly reluctant to say anything, but I'd raised a valid point. It took him a couple of minutes to make his mind up, but finally he shrugged.

"Okay. Carlisle Cullen is not my father. I told you that. The man whose genes made me - I don't even know his name. You were sounding just like Carlisle then, saying that money is the answer to everything, but it isn't. Fuck - it isn't. You and I both have concerns about our futures - everybody does at our age - but your issues and mine are so different! You worry about money, and I admit that I don't, at all. But, God, your worries are so _material_ - and mine are... I don't know what to call them. Mine are _existential_ in comparison. You're thinking about your future and education and college and all those things, and you're starting from a position of such fucking _security_! You couldn't possibly imagine what it's like not to have that. Carlisle Cullen's name and money are both a stepping stone and a parachute for me, sure - but_ fuck_! He's not my father! He's some random fucking guy who picked me up like I was a puppy in a pet shop! You know where you came from and who you are - knowing who you _are_ is the answer to everything. You're Isabella Swan, and there's no question about it, no doubt. I may have a trust fund - but what the fuck is that worth when I'm not Edward Cullen?" he asked me.

This was completely out of the blue and I was speechless.

"Do you understand how much of anyone's sense of self is given solid grounding by their parents? Grandparents? Siblings? You don't have siblings, but at least you _know_ you don't. I have a whole extended family, two even, that I know nothing about. You can look back at photo albums, and medical records - you have a whole _history_, Bella. A genealogy. I _don't_. Everything about me has been assumed - taken on. My history starts with the day Carlisle brought me home from the hospital. My ancestry, my background, my genealogy is lost. So I'm bright. Where did that come from? My musicality? Athleticism? Who fucking knows? None of that genetic information is available." Almost in tears, he beseeched me.

"Carlisle and Esme both have _hazel_ eyes. My green eyes, Bella. Whose are they?"

I put my hand out again, and took one of his. I gripped it hard.

"Can't you make inquiries? Find that stuff out?" I suggested, feeling so lame and small in the maelstrom of this unexpected and sudden despair. "There are organizations..."

He sighed heavily, the weight of worlds in that single long exhalation.

"Well, there's the other thing, Bella. The crux of it all, really. Your mother found herself expecting a baby - she and her husband, both young, both trying to make a start for themselves. They were in love, and they wanted you, and they kept you, despite the hardship. That didn't work out for them, and your mom left, but she took you. And you visited your dad as often as the three of you could manage it. Then your dad wanted you living with him, and here you are, here in Forks, WA. But you know what? My mom didn't do any of that. She gave me up. Right there in the hospital, I was still covered in blood, I'd barely taken my first breath, and she was signing the forms so that I would be taken away. Yes, there are organizations, but both parties have to register in order for the surrendering parent and the surrendered child to be matched up. I haven't got the fucking heart to put my name down, and face being met with a brick wall. Because she doesn't want to find me, or for me to find her. And there you have it. I may appear privileged, and I may seem to have everything going for me but I'm actually a motherless child, made that way by the woman who gave birth to me. _She didn't want me_. Yes, I've got a trust fund, Bella, and I can give you the fucking money to go to college. Say the word, and I'll do it. Carlisle's money means nothing to me other than a means to an end. You need it, you can have it. What I want is what you've had - _biology_ - and all the money in the world can't buy me that."

Well, Jesus. Edward, crown prince of Forks, wasn't just lonely. He was suffering a life-long identity crisis that was crippling him, and he nursed pain that was soul-deep. The revelation was astonishing. I wished I could do something for him - I wished I could make it all less, and bearable - but what was there to say? All I could possibly offer was platitudes. Maybe his mom had been on her own, with no partner and no parental support. Maybe it had been something to do with religion. Maybe she'd been scared and hurting and could see no other way for herself and her baby, and she'd honestly thought she was doing the right thing for him by giving him a better chance. Maybe even now she was just as upset as he was.

But I couldn't insult him by saying any of these things as though he wouldn't have already thought of them a million times before. Instead I let go of his hand and put my arms awkwardly around his neck, pulling him to me in that small space as he bowed his head into my shoulder. I felt like the young mother I was sworn not to be, my whole being occupied with providing solace to someone in need.

"Edward_, Edward_."

I whispered the name he went by, even though he said it wasn't his, and I rocked him gently as his whole body began to heave and his arms locked painfully tight around me. Eventually he drew away, eyes red-rimmed.

"I'm so sorry to lay all that on you," he began, shakily.

"Hey, no problem," I shrugged. "You've heard my shit, now I've heard yours. That's what friends are for."

"We're friends now?"

This whole business was so much bigger, so much heavier, so much _graver _than I could possibly have anticipated when it had become apparent he had a crush on me. Edward might want a girlfriend, but he needed an anchor. If nobody except his family knew he was adopted, then nobody else knew this dreadful burden he was carrying. I was it.

"Guess so," I answered, and he managed a small, humorless grin.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow then, friend."

"Guess so," I replied.

.

.

.


	6. Indigo

**Penultimate**

**PRIMARY ONE**

**Indigo**

I stumbled inside and went through my night-time routine, and once in bed just lay there, sleepless.

Right before my eyes Edward had gone from confident and assured to a walking, talking wreck. There had never, ever been any doubt in my entire life that both my mother and my father had loved and wanted me, and there had never been any doubt in his that his mother hadn't - and who knew what his father thought? The man who had sired him may not have even been aware of his existence. Fuck, it was even possible that his mother hadn't known who his father was. My heart was breaking for him.

And I wondered how and why it was that his adoptive parents hadn't been able to assuage his sense of disconnection. Surely they'd tried, though? It's quite a process to adopt a child, unlike simply having one. There's a rigmarole to go through - forms, and interviews and home visits and all sorts. You have to really want it, to be approved. And yet he seemingly felt no affinity with the family who'd brought him up, he considered himself a cuckoo in their nest, an interloper wearing the wrong-colored feathers and speaking with the wrong-sounding voice.

I gave up trying to sleep and got onto the internet, to find out what I could about how adopted people can trace their biological families. His anguish at what he saw as his mother's rejection was the obstacle to him looking into any of it, but I was clueless as to how to go about giving him any help with the pain. You get nine months or so to make your mind up about whether you're keeping your baby or not, so it's not a spur of the moment decision. She mustn't have made her choice lightly. Edward would have thought about this over and over, and surely there was nothing I could add to what must have been a life-long inner monologue.

He wasn't at school the next day, which was Friday. When I asked his sister where he was, she looked at me sharply.

"He's got a headache," she said. "I'll tell him you were asking after him."

The day was interminable, what with all that was going on in my brain. I just wanted to get the fuck out of school and talk some more to Edward. I'd bleated to him about teen pregnancy - which was preventable - and being stuck in a dead-end job in a small town, which was snobbish and narrow-minded. If I just fucking studied, and set a direction for myself, I had a really good shot at making it. And there I was, whining to him with my stupid bad attitude when what I wanted was in the future and ahead of me and achievable. What Edward wanted so desperately was to rewrite his past, which was impossible. Or to open the door one day to a woman and man who would say "We're your parents, we love you, we've been looking for you all this time and we never meant for any of us to be apart. We've come to take you home." While not impossible, that scenario was highly unlikely. And he knew it - it lay like a leaden weight in his heart. Even though my having anything to do with him at all was so recent, I felt a responsibility. He wasn't just Edward Cullen, dweeb, any more, he was a lost soul. I wanted to get to him and hold him like I'd held him last night, comfort him, sooth him, promise to be his friend forever so that he'd never again have cause to feel lonely or rejected. Of course, I probably wouldn't take it that far at first. I'd just let him know he wasn't a pariah, and ease in to the rest of it.

At home I did chores and homework and made dinner, leaving a serving for Charlie in the warming drawer, since he wouldn't be home until 11 or so. Then I called Edward.

"Yes?" he answered, sounding guarded.

"Ah - you weren't at school today. I'm ringing to see if you're okay."

"I'm fine. Thank you."

He hesitated and I hesitated, but I had an agenda.

"What're you up to?"

"The usual, Bella," he said drily. "Not much."

"Well, I'm not either, so do you want to come over?"

He still hesitated. "Another non-date? People will talk."

"Shut up. Not a non-date - a _visit_. It's a common form of social interaction."

"Okay, I'm aware of the concept. And yes, I'd like that. But why don't you come here?"

"There? Your place?"

"Yes, but not the front gate." He gave me directions to get to some other gate - they probably had about fifty of them, all under surveillance no doubt, opening onto manicured driveways with peacocks and fountains and rose gardens. No fucking wonder he wanted to disown the whole fucking bad taste circus.

He was waiting for me when I drove up - a lone figure hovering with faux-nonchalance that actually came off as anxiety. After some beserk semaphore to guide me to one side, he opened my door for me as I switched the engine off.

"You're a space cadet," I said, by way of a greeting.

"It takes one to know one," he responded.

"So, are your parents - uh, are Carlisle and Esme expecting me?" I said, self-correcting.

"No. They're home, but we're not going to the house. I want to take you somewhere," he said.

The Cullen Empire HQ had floodlights, they had searchlights, they had arena lights. You could have staged fucking Olympic whatever-night-sports-you-wanted in there, and it was like the sun was full beam overhead. How embarrassing for Edward. He held my hand, leading me away from the glare, down a pathway behind the house and the swimming pool and tennis court and croquet lawn and golf course and the safari park and the city limits and the dark side of the fucking moon to a small private forest, miles from the house.

"Here," he said, indicating with the beam of his flashlight to where one of the trees had a rope ladder. I can climb about as well as I can bowl, but I clambered up and found a little trapdoor to squeeze through. Edward came up behind me after I'd lumbered on to the flat surface there like a walrus, and the light he was carrying revealed a treehouse like something out of the Swiss Family Robinson Hilton. There was a level area built into gaps between branches that was about three yards square, and it had walls and a roof. It had a tiny table and bookshelf. It had a fucking _mattress_.

"Justin?" I said incredulously, turning to him. "Justin Case?"

"Don't get too excited," he said. "We've had that conversation, remember? Or one covering similar ground, anyway. You're all no-dating, no-sex, no-nothing but schoolwork. That's fine. I've brought you up here to go over some calculus."

"Calculus, yeah, right. Why have you _really_ brought me here?"

"Oh, Jesus, Bella. Just to have somewhere private to hang out. If I took you through the front door my parents would quiz you, and ask for your credentials. They'd think any girl I brought home was a gold-digger - they'd be awful. I don't want to make small talk with you in the living room with everyone else listening in. Please - don't freak out, because this isn't meant to be weird or anything - but can we be friends without it being a big deal? A public deal? If my parents even know I'm talking to a girl they'll commission a police check and an iq test and a fucking gyno examination. That's how they are. I couldn't put you through that."

My father would ask for the equivalent, to be honest. Edward is not alone in his embarrassment there, but he thinks he is, so I don't set him straight. He shrugs out of his backpack and plonks it down.

"I didn't know what you'd like, so I grabbed beer and ojay," he says. "And cornchips and salsa."

"Party on, dude. Although I don't really drink. Being underage and all, and my Dad being in law enforcement."

"You can have juice then. I've got backgammon, too. Do you play?"

"Well enough to kick your ass."

We set the board up and started a game, playing in silence while we settled in to our environment and each other's presence.

"Well, damn, hit me up with one of your beers then," I asked after a while, figuring the alcohol would loosen my tongue a little. It did.

"You know, life's a bit like backgammon, isn't it? We can't influence the fall of the dice but to an extent, we can choose our moves."

He snorted. "Such a philosopher."

"But I'm right, aren't I?"

I'd lost interest in the stupid game by then. Although I can be competitive, tonight I just wasn't in the mood. There was a glass panel in the roof, and if you looked up you could see part of the milky way - all indigo and sparkles. Infinity and nebulae had a lot more appeal than counters and dice and elongated triangles.

"I give up," I said to Edward.

"You give up what?" he asked.

"Oh, God, everything," I murmured, because in that moment I did. I was more sorry than words could express about his situation, and after a bottle of beer, which I wasn't used to at all, it seemed like a pretty damn good idea to be hidden away in the dark with an intense and handsome boy somewhere where nobody knew about us, regardless of my state of mind or his. Beer and starlight and isolation and Edward sure made for a nice combination.

I was gazing at him, trying to analyze the look he was giving me, when the flashlight went out, plunging us into pitch black.

"Shit!" he exclaimed. "There are spare batteries here somewhere," and I heard him scrabbling around in the vicinity of the bookcase.

"It's okay. Don't panic. It's not as if we can fall out," I told him, as he cursed more.

"You're not scared?"

I've never been afraid of the dark. As a child I welcomed it, finding it a warm reassuring blanket after the unwelcome unforgiving radiance of waking hours when the world was so much more prosaic and commonplace than I wanted it to be. In the dark all things were possible.

"No," I reassured him. "It's cool."

"Okay. Well, I've found batteries so I'll have us illuminated again in a second."

"Could you not? Could we stay like this for a while?"

"Uh - sure. If that's what you want. Where are you?"

I heard a soft rustling which must have been him shuffling across the boards towards me, then I felt his hands. One of them got me in the face, and I felt the other go past the side of my head before it dropped to my shoulder.

"I hit you! Fuck! Sorry. Can't see a fucking thing," he mumbled. "Are you going to have a black eye, or any bruises? Shit - that really was not supposed to happen. Are you alive?"

"Yes, but my Dad will be able to get your fingerprints from my cheek. Even if I refuse to give your name he'll have you identified in hours. You'll be in jail for a long time."

"Shit! Bella, have I hurt you?" he said worriedly, not in the least amused.

"Obviously not. I would have yelped and then I would have hit you back."

His hands dropped to my knees, leaning heavily on them, and I could hear that he was shifting around, so I guessed he was trying to get comfortable. A moment later I reached out too, and discovered he was facing me, in the same posture I was in. We were knee to knee, cross-legged, surrounded by the dense quiet.

It seemed as good a time as any to introduce a subject he may or may not want to avoid.

"What we were talking about yesterday..." I said. "Can we go back there?"

There was the tiniest, quietest intake of breath.

"You and me humping?" he asked. He sounded like he was trying not to sound hopeful.

"No. NO. I mean the other stuff. _Your_ stuff."

His next inhalation was louder, and the exhalation following it louder still, but he didn't say no.

"I know you've already thought of all possible scenarios regarding your birth and your adoption. I know tracing your birth parents would be the scariest thing you've ever done. But Edward, the not-knowing is just _eating_ you. Now that you've told me I can see it. You've worked out who you're _not_ and you're really, really clear on that - but what about who you _are_?"

"Bella - " I could tell he was frowning in that perfect movie-idol way he had, and I hoped he wasn't getting pissed at me, because I was going to keep going anyway.

"What do Carlisle and Esme say about it all? It sounds as though they haven't told you much."

"They haven't told me anything. When I was quite young they explained that I was adopted, and when I asked a couple of times if I had another mummy and daddy somewhere they'd say we could talk about when I was bigger. But gradually things between them and me became so strained and difficult that it just wasn't a topic I felt able to broach."

"You get on badly?"

"Very badly. Carlisle was trying to steer me into medicine without letting me find a direction for myself. He had my future mapped out - Edward Cullen, son of the famous Carlisle Cullen. It's all about me reflecting his glory and living up to him and being worthy. When other kids my age were reading bedtime stories he got me books on anatomical studies and a child's introduction to medicine. At first I wanted to please him and I found it all quite easy anyway, so I pursued the course he wanted for me until I started to really wonder about where I came from and why I felt so different, and then I baulked. He was disappointed, and our relationship has been steadily going downhill for years. And Esme always seemed a little distant - she's just become more so, the older I get."

"But Edward, surely it must upset them both to see you unsettled and unhappy. They must want the best for you, mustn't they? Isn't that what all parents want?"

"If that's been your experience, maybe you're just lucky, Bella," Edward responded.

Fuck. I'd felt so fucking unlucky. _I'm a victim. I'm doomed._ The refrain of the self-absorbed. I was a fucking idiot who couldn't pull her head out of her ass long enough to notice that there were other people around who were worse off. Who had _actual_ problems, not just _Oh, a boy likes me, my life is ruined._

"Look, you've got no reason to trust me. I was a bitch to you. But, what I want to say is, you can talk to me. I'll support you. If you decide to take the plunge and make inquiries, I'll be right here. That's it. I don't know what I can do to reassure you or help you or anything like that - but I'll be here."

Edward's hand reached for mine and held it lightly. "Why would you? Do you feel sorry for me now?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm sorry for you because you're a ginger. That's gotta come from at least one of your parents. Actually, both, because it's recessive, isn't it?"

"This is your idea of support? Making fun of me?"

"Well, yeah."

"And you think_ I'm_ the space cadet."

His hand and my hand sat idly, on the top of my knee. I sort of wished I could see him, but at the same time I was glad I couldn't.

"Seriously, though. I mean it. Not the hair thing. The talking thing and the friend thing and the support thing."

I heard him wriggle some more.

"Thanks," he said finally, quietly, and then his other hand touched me. My shoulder. My neck. My brow. He traced my cheek delicately and lightly with one finger, so gently that even when he went straight over my eye it was soft as being tread on by a butterfly. I wondered what the fuck he was doing and why, but I wasn't going to interrupt, because it felt beautiful. He was giving me goosebumps as the exploration continued on to my collarbone.

"Your pulse is racing," he said in a wondering tone, and then his hand dropped away. "I'm making you uncomfortable."

I shook my head, forgetting that he wouldn't be able to see, and then I answered, "No."

"Yes, I am," he spoke quickly. "I shouldn't touch you like that, or at all. I'm sorry. It was overstepping the mark. You've made your feelings very clear."

This not being able to read his expression was suddenly proving very difficult.

"Edward, honestly, it's okay. It felt - nice," I mumbled, heat coming to my cheeks.

"You're saying that because after last night you know what a fuckup I am. You don't want to make me feel bad."

"No, it's not that all. All that stuff you said was a complete surprise, but you've been surprising me for weeks now. Before you and I ever spoke I thought you were conceited. I thought you just waltzed around with this huge sense of entitlement and superiority, and I'm seeing how wrong I was. You're not like that at all. You're - thoughtful. I don't mean as in considerate. I mean as in, you _think_. There's no evidence anywhere that guys of our age think. Studies have proved it."

He didn't respond and I just wanted to squirm because I didn't know what was going on his head.

"I like talking to you," I added. "I like being around you. I like - " I gestured, waving between him and me, because I meant that I liked this being so alone together. Knowing he couldn't see me made me feel exposed, because I had to clarify myself. "I like being like this with you."

More silence - stretching and expanding, bigger than the dark.

"I don't know why you're telling me this. You don't want to date," he said at last.

"Uh - no," I admitted, although I was thinking that dating Edward didn't seem such a bad option, as long as I was careful. As long as I didn't get carried away and let him distract me from studying. As long as I stayed on track.

"I _didn't_ want to date - " I began...

And then all hell broke loose.

My father's voice was shouting urgently, "Bella? Bella? Are you out here?"

A voice I didn't know but guessed was the Surgeon General, Carlisle Cullen, was shouting too. "Edward?"

Oh fuck. I'd been drinking alcohol. I was with a boy, unchaperoned in any way, and no doubt pregnant. The fact that the only place Edward and I had had skin-to-skin contact was north of my neckline would mean diddly-squat to an angry and extremely protective father, who was going to kill the only boy I'd ever remotely liked, or at the very least imprison him for the kidnapping, reckless endangerment and carnal knowledge of a minor. And I would be grounded until my sixtieth birthday, or my father's death, whichever came first.

Fuck knows how they'd even suspected we were out there, although the cctv and sniffer dogs and privately-owned Hubble telescope on moon-base Cullen probably had something to do with it.

"Don't answer," I whispered to Edward, "Maybe they'll go away."

"Nah. Better face them. We're in big trouble, Bella, I guess. Well,_ I _am. This was my idea," Edward said.

"One in, all in," I replied, and he and I clambered down the ladder with Carlisle and Charlie both shining deathray whitelight beams on us and looking ready to launch Bad Cop, Badder Cop. But we'd appeared immediately, and neither of us had any buttons unfastened, nor had we had time to fasten any.

"What's going on?" Charlie growled, and Edward faced him squarely.

"Bella and I were playing backgammon, sir."

"Have you been drinking?" Carlisle demanded.

"Yes," I spoke up. "One bottle of beer each."

We weren't drunk, we weren't mussed up, we had no obvious hickeys. They ushered us back to the house and took turns telling us not to disappear without notifying anybody. Each father seemed as non-plussed as the other by the whole event, though they maintained the sternness. I managed a hasty goodbye to Edward as Charlie insisted on driving me home, which was when I found out he'd come a different way than usual tonight and had seen my truck parked outside the Cullens'. As it was a never-seen-before occurrence he'd decided to investigate.

He huffed a bit more back at our house, but he wasn't too mad.

"Next time, send me a message," he told me, heading to the kitchen for his dinner.

I nodded, "Sure, Dad. Sorry," before making my way upstairs.

It was still a lovely, clear night. Indigo and sparkles shone through my window pane, making me smile. I knew they were shining on Edward, too.

.

.

.


	7. Violet

**This is the last chapter.**

**PRIMARY ONE**

**Violet**

All Saturday I was on high alert. _High_. In case Edward rang, or texted. I figured if I called him it would be two days in a row and he'd think I was chasing him. I wasn't quite ready to put myself out there like that, although fuck, I _wanted_ to chase him. Even more, I wanted to catch him. Some of my friends called about a party but I blew them off, preferring to sit with my earbuds in, fiddling from track to track on my i-pod, cell tucked into my jeans pocket, set to vibrate.

No call came, though. Not during the day, not in the evening, not the next morning. Throw me a fucking bone here, Edward! I couldn't blame him. Me and my fucking mixed messages - I don't want to date, I like you, I'll never have sex with you, touch me. Sure Bella, no way he could find any of that confusing.

Dad had asked what was going on with me and Edward Cullen and I'd said nothing. Big fat nada. Then Dad had zipped the lip, without further comment. I wasn't grounded, I wasn't even given a warning. Did that mean he wasn't going to disapprove if anything did happen? Hell if I knew.

Sunday my fingers had inched their way to speed dial so many times I was ready to throw my fucking phone into the trash when suddenly it buzzed. Oh my God. The name I was waiting for lit up on the screen.

"Bella?" Edward asked, his voice strange and tight. "I need to see you."

Oh, fuck - I need to see you, too.

He came and picked me up and he said nothing in the car. He was biting his lip. He was frowning and pale and deadly serious and the intensity that always emanated from him was like a fucking forcefield, making the hairs on my arms stand on end because of the electricity in the air between us.

We stopped at the Lookout Point on the way out of town and he opened my door, then shoved his hands so deeply into his pockets you'd have thought he was trying to mine for uranium down there. Everything about him said Warning, and Alarm, and Danger. He was so beautiful my heart was going to explode. So tall and skinny, and almost haloed with the way his hair blazed in the late sun.

Something was going to happen. Something big, and I was off my fucking head on excitement and anticipation. I'd never liked a guy - because guys are pointless, right? Well, not completely, because they can move heavy things, and they're taller, which is useful when you want to reach something that's on a high shelf. But other than that, they're clever in a useless way about things that don't matter. Things that involve numbers and measurements and dry, featureless data. They want to be so fucking rational, to work out a formula and then apply it. Ask a boy about the sound of rain and he'll fucking turn it to maths or physics or something. They are reductionists. And why the fuck do they attribute any importance to sport? Because of their lack of art. Because they want to compete instead of co-operate or create. They can't even hold a decent conversation because they view everyone else as opponents and they're so fixated on winning.

But Edward - oh my God - when had he cracked my certitude that boys were a waste of space and shouldn't be let loose? They certainly shouldn't be running the fucking world - they shouldn't even be allowed to run the length of a chicken coop.

But Edward.

I knew - at least I suspected - that my Dad had deep feelings, but he didn't articulate them. Edward's feelings were fucking subterranean, and he had the emotional vocabulary to verbalize his conflict and insecurity. And fuck, he had the _strength_ to do it.

I'd spent hour after hour thinking about this shit, and hour after hour coming to the realization that I wanted Edward Cullen. I fucking _wanted_ him. His cleverness and insight, his perception and articulacy. Friday night he'd touched me, and not just physically. He'd touched me in a way that had me ready to let all my barriers down - to let him in. Close, near, _in_, the way I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't let a boy get close to me. And I felt so liberated by my decision that it was intoxicating.

I wanted to share his thoughts and words and know him. I wanted to give him everything that he needed and make it enough that he could cope with his unknown parentage and early loss. I would be his family. And I wanted the touching. More of it, lots more. I would be his girlfriend, and then some.

Jesus the fuck, fuck. My mother had gone for the intense boy, the one who spoke to her but not to others. It didn't escape me that I had just resolved to do what my mother did, but it was different. I knew the pitfalls, and I wouldn't fall into them, I was sure of it.

So we kicked pebbles along the path while I composed sentences in my head to declare myself.

Then Edward cleared his throat.

"Uh, Bella, after I saw you the other night, after you went home, I - well, I confronted Carlisle."

Whoa, this was not something I could have anticipated.

"Yeah?" I prompted.

"Yeah. And he told me everything. Pretty much everything, anyway."

_Whoa_. "Do you want to talk about it?"

His voice was unsteady. "Yes and no. Well, no because there was really fucking bad news and it's just so _hard_ to take - " and Edward started to cry. His face screwed up and his shoulders shook. I took him in my arms and we stumbled to a bench overlooking the endless forest.

"You don't have to tell me right now. Wait till you're ready. It's okay, you should take some time to get used to it first. There's no rush," I murmured, _dying_ to know.

"There is," Edward mumbled, raising his head. "I have to tell you."

"Okay then, shoot."

He wiped his eyes with the heels of his palms, and took a few jagged breaths.

"My parents are dead," he began.

Oh, fuck.

"Their names were Edward and Elizabeth Masen. Yeah, my father was _Edward_. And they were both doctors. Just before I was born they were in Brazil, living in a small community and treating people there who'd come down with a mysterious tropical disease. A vaccine had been developed, which they'd both been given. When they found they were expecting me they made arrangements to come back to America for the birth, only they discovered the vaccine hadn't been effective. My father became ill, and the disease progressed so rapidly - "

He was crying again.

" - he barely survived a month after first showing symptoms. Special arrangements were made for my mother to be flown back under quarantine conditions, even though the disease was caused by a parasite and wasn't thought to be infectious. She was admitted straight into a hospital in Chicago, which happened to be where Carlisle was working. She was kept in isolation while she was undergoing health checks and he started visiting her."

"Wow. He _knew_ your Mom."

"Yeah."

"Take a minute, it's okay."

Edward straightened up and stared over the trees.

"She had red hair, Bella. And green eyes. Carlisle says I'm the image of her."

"She must have been very beautiful, then."

Despite himself, he couldn't help the little smile that tugged at his mouth.

"Did you just pay me a compliment?"

"No. As if."

"It sounded like one. Anyway, see for yourself."

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a photo of a man and a woman hugging, but with their faces turned to the camera. They were casually dressed, caught in a moment of laughter. And fuck, the woman looked like Edward. She was _beautiful_. Curly hair, though. He'd gotten his unruly straight hair from his father, whose locks were short but wayward.

"They look happy," I said, as Edward stared lingeringly at the picture before putting it away again.

"Yeah. She told Carlisle that they were. But anyway, when her test results came back in the hospital it turned out she was infected too. Carlisle said she was absolutely distraught, because she wanted so much to have her baby and be a mother. I was given blood tests in utero, and I was clear. Even though the disease had such a fast rate of progress, Carlisle said she fought every day, she was so determined that I would be born, and that she'd hold me. She just wouldn't succumb to any depression or fatalism. She arranged for a piano to be brought in, and she played classical pieces to me. _Fuck_. And she read aloud - stories, but also medicine books for kids."

"Oh. Edward. You thought that all came from Carlisle..."

"I was wrong. He was only continuing what my own mother had started."

He paused again. "Carlisle and Esme had suffered a miscarriage a year earlier and they'd been told Esme couldn't have another baby. When Carlisle mentioned this to Elizabeth, she said he should adopt me. Of course, Carlisle didn't think she actually meant it, considering that hers and Edward's parents were alive and well, living in Chicago, visiting her daily. But Elizabeth wanted Carlisle to have me. She asked one of the other doctors to find an adoption attorney, and she got the paperwork ready. She presented Carlisle with it a week before I was born."

I didn't even know what to say. This sudden new knowledge must have been really fucking with Edward, but he managed to keep going.

"I was seventeen days old when Elizabeth died. She got to hold me after all. Carlisle said she didn't let me go."

He stood up.

"Can we walk a while? I need to - I don't know. Just move around. I'm not finished with everything I have to tell you yet."

I slipped my hand into his and he didn't seem to mind as we walked along the ridge, looking at the vast blanket of dark brown and dark green covering the landscape below us. Taking our breath and remaking it, sending it to the sky, for it to fall to our lungs again. Yeah, that's not how it's explained in class, but that's how I like to think of it. Trees are our friends. Fuck.

Edward's hand was cold and he still seemed really remote. I wanted to get closer but I didn't know if it would be welcome. So I asked a question instead.

"How come Carlisle had never told you any of this before?"

"He said he was waiting for me to come to him. That was the only way he'd know for sure that I was ready. He was worried that if he volunteered it without my asking, I'd have been less mentally and emotionally prepared. Not that I was prepared - far from it. All this time I'd thought - I'd imagined - well, that I'd meet my mother one day, and she'd explain it to me. Well, she did explain it. She wrote a letter for Carlisle to give me when I was older. It says how much she loved me and how happy I made her and Edward. It's pages long, all sorts of stuff about how they met and their lives together."

"That's a wonderful thing to have."

He nodded. "Yeah. And that's not all. Carlisle never lost contact with my grandparents. All my life he's been sending them pictures and letting them know how I'm getting on. All my fucking life."

He stopped walking and faced me. "I rang them, Bella, two grandmothers, two grandfathers. I spoke to them. They were overjoyed. They'd waited seventeen years for the call."

"Well, that's - just amazing. Really amazing. Are you going to go and meet them?"

"Um, yeah."

There was something wrong. I knew it.

"When are you going?"

"Pretty soon, actually. Like, in a couple of days."

Something was really, _really_ wrong, from the expression on his face and the sound of his voice.

"Well, that's good, Edward. That's great. It's exactly what you need. I'm really happy for you. You must be buzzed. It's exciting. How long are you going for?"

He reached and took both my hands, scowling hard.

"Well, that's the thing, Bella. That's the thing."

"What's the thing?"

"You know how we're friends now? But you're not my girlfriend? Because you don't want to be? Well, that's good. It's good that we're friends. Because if you were my girlfriend this next part would suck."

"Well, shit, Edward, spit it out. What are you talking about?"

He'd apparently been holding his breath, because now he exhaled in a long sigh.

"I'm going indefinitely," he said.

And that knocked the fucking wind right out of my sails. It was like a punch in the guts.

"What?" I almost croaked.

"Yeah. I have to find out who I am. That's going to take more than a weekend visit. I've never fitted in here, never felt right. I have to thank you for providing the impetus that's made all this happen for me. I've spent all these years forging an identity with this huge disparity between the Edward Cullen everybody sees, and this inner, unformed self that had no foundation. I have to find out if they're like me, if I'm like them. It's a longing - now that I know they're there, I can't not be with them."

This was fucking terrible._ Terrible_. "But - school?" I said.

"There are schools in Chicago. Apparently."

"But - Carlisle and Esme?"

"They're supportive. They understand."

"Your friends?"

"Jesus, Bella, you know perfectly well I don't have any. No, I have one. You."

I was so stunned at his announcement about leaving that it took me a while to react. But then I started to feel mad.

"Yeah, _me_. Do I get a say? Or am I so low in the fucking rankings that I don't count?"

"Please, Bella, please. Don't take it this way. My mind is made up. The other night you let me touch you, and if your father hadn't caught us, I would have been kissing you, despite all the refusals you'd already given me. I would have been trying to coerce you into bed, so that we'd be lovers, and you'd be bound to me. That's not what your head wants, Bella. I would have ruined everything you want, been everything you're afraid of, trying to make us be together because I'm so fucking empty. But you can't fill that gap inside me, the only person who can fill it is me. It's not that I don't care what you say, but if I stayed here I'd eventually tear you apart."

He couldn't seriously be trying to sell his sudden departure as being for my benefit - could he?

"No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't let you. What do you even mean? I'm strong."

"Yes, you are. You're strong and good and kind. You're not the tough character you present to everybody. That's the persona you've adopted to keep people from distracting you while you do what you want to do. Bella, I _admire_ that in you. I admire that you're determined and you've set a path for yourself and you're prepared to work hard to follow it. It comes from your secure identity, I think. It's something that _I'm_ looking for - a path, a direction... I need to define myself. Jesus, I didn't mean for this shit to happen. I liked you and I let you know it, without knowing that I was going to crack up like this. I believe the relationship between mother and child is the primary one, the building block for all society. I didn't have it, and I've grown up damaged. I'm sorry, I'm so _sorry_, but I'm not whole - you know that, don't you? There isn't enough of me to offer you anything. What I have to do is be around my family and learn all I can about my parents, and draw all the strands together until I can make sense of them."

Weeks ago he was some presence I was aware of, but held in no regard whatsoever. Then his attention to me became mildly embarrassing. A quantum leap away from that, a few hours ago he became _necessary_, and before I even got to tell him, he decided to fucking skip town. Even as I felt really miserable about his plan, I knew the pain he carried, and I was convinced of the compulsion he felt. Going to his family was the right thing for him to do.

"You know, I'm honestly glad for you that you're going to take this momentous step, and discover your background and your relatives, but at the same time, you're an ass," I whispered.

"Why?"

"Because you fucking are."

"Why? You can't just call me that."

"Watch me. Ass."

He was still holding my hands.

"You're really pissed, aren't you? Please tell me why."

I glared. "Maybe I changed my mind about a few things. Maybe I like you, okay? But forget about it, because I don't."

"Oh, _God_," he groaned. "Don't like me, because I'm not going to be here. And don't wait for me, because I don't know when I'll be back."

I couldn't answer as he let go of my hands and pulled me to him lightly.

"You know, Bella Swan," he said, "there's a parallel universe somewhere where you don't just like me, you _love_ me the way I want you to, and I love you the way you deserve, because we're soulmates and we kiss each other and talk and make love all day and night."

"Fuck you and your parallel universe. Actually I hate you."

"Only in this dimension."

The night deepened as we stood wordlessly, holding each other while the breeze came up and then he steered me back towards his car, towards our parting of the ways, towards the end. We were driving, we were in my street, we were outside my house.

"It's all wrong. It's so wrong and difficult, and not what I want," he said, once the motor was off, "but I have to say goodbye."

"Yeah, well, you'd better get going - remember the two and a half minute rule."

"We've never even kissed."

"We probably shouldn't. Might as well end it on a high note."

I just wanted to get out of the car and run. He'd fucking dumped me, without me ever being his girlfriend. He'd dumped the idea of me. I knew everybody in Forks, and there wasn't a single interesting or attractive person until Edward had spoken to me that night at his stupid party. There would never be an interesting person in Forks again. Edward was the only one for me. I took the door handle.

"I'll say it first, okay? Goodbye. I hope things work out for you. I really mean it. I hope you find what you're looking for. Good luck."

"Bella?"

"Don't, Edward, just_ don't_."

And he didn't. I opened the door without any protest from him, and I walked up our front path to the steps, and I was walking blind because I'd started crying. Weeping, sobbing. The fucking bastard, making me think there was someone here with a fucking brain, someone with a heart, someone I could talk to, someone I could _care_ about.

He was out of the car somehow and in front of me without my having heard. His long, elegant, beautiful fingers wrapped around my cheeks, their tips reaching underneath my hairline. His eyes were dark and glowing in the violet night, his lips full.

"I've got no right to do this," he muttered, before his mouth was on mine. _In_ mine. Already open, already moving, soft and questing. Kissing me as if he loved me. Oh, I kissed him back with everything, my arms, my chest, my hips, pressing and holding, my tongue dancing to his. It was definitely more than two and a half minutes. It was at least ten. But it hadn't been nearly long enough when he pulled back. I wouldn't have pulled back in a million years, but already he was disentangling himself, putting distance between us, letting go. Letting me go.

"Goodbye," he said, hoarsely, and he turned from me, walking away. His car purred into life as I stood numbly on the porch, watching it arc in a U-turn and race into the night. Watching it disappear.

And he was gone to a new life, leaving me already lonely in his wake.

**THE END**

Thankyou


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